Death on the Way

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  ‘Immediately all the old creditors were on his back. He was now getting a salary; very well, he could put aside part of it for them. He did so, but it left him very cramped and he had difficulty in living up to his position. His exasperation grew when he looked forward to years of this miserable existence. But he daren’t refuse to pay. He feared his creditors would go to Mr Marlowe and that he might lose his job.

  ‘Then the Widening started. Carey, who was a thorough paced scoundrel, intended to make a good thing out of the job, as he had done before on similar occasions. Carey looked round for a dupe, heard whispers as to Parry’s position and felt that here was something too good to be missed. Very delicately he approached Parry. He wanted money? Well, there was a simple way in which he could get several hundreds, perhaps a thousand or two. Safe? Yes, as safe as houses; no one could ever know anything about it. Carey had tried it before; it had worked and it would work again. You can imagine the style of thing.’

  French paused, but the others made no remark. This was a rather terrible tale they were hearing. Neither had realised that Parry’s life had been so hard. Even Lowell was thinking of him less bitterly, and Brenda could scarcely refrain from weeping with the misery of it. Presently French resumed.

  ‘Carey put up his scheme. They were to make the tracings jointly, then Parry was to do the photo prints in the Lydmouth office in the middle of the night. Carey would supply paper so that the railway stuff should not be missed.

  ‘Carey knew that the dangerous point of the scheme was the getting of the prints, as these must be obtained in some way which could not be traced. This was to be Parry’s job, and as the discovery would mean prison, it got him fairly committed. But Carey chiefly wanted Parry in the thing because he believed that in case of discovery he would be able to shift the entire responsibility on to him and so escape himself. Parry was to get half the profits.

  ‘This was all carried out according to plan. The swindle was launched and no one suspected anything. For ten months it went on well and Parry, while still slowly paying off the debts, was living more comfortably and amassing cash, which he kept in a suitcase in his rooms. Then the first trouble arose.

  ‘One day Mr Mayers told Parry that Mr Ackerley was investigating the earthwork quantities, which he thought were not coming out satisfactorily. Parry immediately became panic-stricken. He saw that discovery was inevitable.

  ‘His first reaction was to go to Carey. Then he thought of a better way. Carey might be a swindler, but Parry did not believe he would stand for murder. Would it not be better if Mr Ackerley was simply to meet with an accident? Parry was very ingenious and he worked out a scheme which he felt sure no one would ever suspect.

  ‘I think,’ French continued, ‘Mr Bragg would appreciate this perhaps more than you will do, owing to his knowing the details of what happened better. However, the scheme was something like this.

  ‘Parry first discussed the excavation affair with Mr Ackerley and offered to help him in his investigations; the same trick as he adopted later with you, Miss Vane. In this way he got Mr Ackerley to put off telling anyone else what was in his mind. Then he fixed on the evening on which the certificate was to be completed as that on which the accident would happen.

  ‘He had been told a day or two earlier to fix up an appointment between Mr Ackerley and an adjoining owner called Potts relative to a right of way, and it was this which gave him his idea. He fixed the meeting for 5.30 on the afternoon of the certificate. This, he felt sure, would involve Mr Ackerley’s walking through from Whitness to Redchurch at the end of the day, as owing to the certificate Mr Ackerley would be at Whitness in the afternoon.

  ‘He had now devised a plan for making Mr Ackerley walk along the railway at a time when it would be deserted. He had next to arrange for himself to be sent there at the same time.

  ‘There was a piece of sea pitching at a convenient place, which he thought would help. It had been his duty to measure it up for the certificate, and he had done so, correctly. When Mr Bragg reached the Whitness office on that day, Parry put in his return, but he altered the figure, making it impossibly large. He knew Mr Bragg would question it and that he would probably be sent out to check it. He was not sure that the scheme would work, and if it failed he would have tried something else. But it worked perfectly. Mr Bragg noticed the erroneous figure and required it to be checked for the certificate. Parry made difficulties about going, so as to decrease the chance of suspicion, but at last he was able to arrange that he should walk out with Mr Ackerley when the latter was going to interview Potts.

  ‘On the previous Saturday Parry had taken his worst risk. He had bought a second-hand bicycle,’ and French explained the method. ‘To cover his tracks he had made himself up to resemble Carey. He wore high internal heels in his shoes, padded himself out with clothes, spoke in a high-pitched voice and mimicked, so far as he was able, Carey’s Irish accent. The disguise would not of course have taken in anyone who had seen Carey, but it was sufficient to obscure the issue.

  ‘On that Saturday night Parry rode the machine to Downey’s Point and hid it in the shrubbery at the side of the road. He had to take the risk of leaving it there over Sunday, but there was not a great deal of danger in this, as there was no occasion for anyone to enter the shrubbery. As a matter of fact no one did so, and the bicycle was not seen.

  ‘He walked out with Mr Ackerley to where he had to measure up the pitching. It chanced that he there met Ganger Mutch going home along the railway. Parry had intended to make an excuse to walk on with Mr Ackerley to Downey’s Point, but the presence of the ganger made it necessary for him to part from Mr Ackerley and go down the slope as if to begin the measuring of the pitching. It was not till afterwards that he realised that Mutch’s evidence would be a valuable asset to him.

  ‘As soon as Mutch had disappeared from sight, he ran after Mr Ackerley. He had not, of course, to measure up the pitching, as he already knew the correct figure. He took care to overtake Mr Ackerley at the place he had fixed on, and there, getting behind him, he struck him on the side of the head with a piece of lead pipe wrapped in a sock, which he had carried with him. He threw the pipe into the sea, arranged Mr Ackerley’s body to look as if the unhappy young man had tripped in the drain and fallen across the rail, then he rushed up to the road, took out the bicycle and rode at full speed to Whitness. He hid the bicycle in the little spinney near the contractors’ yard, and entering on foot through the small gate, turned up in the office as if he had just walked in along the line. His unavoidable excitement he would have explained by saying that he had to hurry back, but Mr Bragg did not appear to notice anything amiss.

  ‘When the “accident” happened he had no longer any need to act a part. His genuine horror and anxiety were taken as natural under the circumstances. No one suspected anything.

  ‘By going back with Mr Ackerley to his house, Parry gave Mr Bragg time to go on to Lydmouth. He was thus left alone at Redchurch. He walked back to Whitness, recovered his bicycle from the spinney, rode it to a cliff near Lydmouth, dropped it over into what he thought was deep water, and walked back to his rooms.

  ‘The inquest passed off as he had hoped, and he began to breathe more freely. He thought he was safe. But he was speedily undeceived. When the time came for the next payment from the fraud, Carey told him he was going to pay him no more, but intended to keep the whole of the profits for himself. When Parry began to bluster, Carey said: All right, did he want to be handed over to the police for the murder of Ackerley? Parry continued to bluster, then Carey made his position brutally clear to him.’

  Lowell and Brenda were listening almost spellbound to this recital. Was this at last the connection between the two murders which had so long eluded everyone concerned? Without comment they waited while French resumed.

  ‘I omitted to tell you one other thing that Parry had done. Should suspicion be aroused that Mr Ackerley’s death was not really an accident, he wished to ensure that that suspicion shoul
d fall on someone other than himself. He chose Carey as the scapegoat, as he thought that Carey’s removal would be the safest thing for himself. He therefore typed a note to Carey, the famous note which you, Miss Vane, know all about. That worked very well. Carey was taken in by it and went out to the Whirlpool Cave.

  ‘This proved a tragic case of the biter being bit, of poetic justice, of digging a pit and falling into it oneself, or however you like to describe it. When Carey was returning to the office he unintentionally turned the tables on Parry. He was approaching the private gate when a bicycle arrived at a great speed, stopped, and was pushed into the spinney adjoining. Carey hid and saw Parry come out of the spinney and enter the yard. Knowing Parry had no bicycle, Carey became suspicious. He went into the spinney and took particulars of the machine. Next day he learned of Ackerley’s death and also that the letter was a forgery. He began to put two and two together. He made inquiries and at last discovered the shop at which Parry had bought the machine. He made an excuse to call at Parry’s rooms and found the typewriter with the crooked “r”, though this he didn’t tell Parry till later. What he did say was that if Parry didn’t do exactly as he was told, he, Carey, would “discover” the fraud, pointing out that it must have been worked by Parry, and at the same time would tell about seeing the bicycle, the significance of which, he would say, had only then occurred to him.

  ‘I may explain here,’ went on French, ‘that I also called at Parry’s rooms on the lookout for the typewriter with the crooked “r”. But by a piece of extraordinarily bad luck it happened that Miss Ackerley had borrowed it to do some Musical Society circulars, and I did not find it. Had I done so, not only would you both have been spared your anxieties, but Carey would not have lost his life.

  ‘Parry, of course, had to knuckle under. The least breath of suspicion and he was lost. The old, miserable life then began again, with the dread of arrest added to it. Parry found his position intolerable. He had already by desperate means rid himself of one danger. It was practically inevitable that in this next emergency his thoughts should turn to the same expedient.

  ‘He made four separate attempts to murder Carey: he has put it on record without the least evasion. The first three failed owing to small details not working out as he had hoped. The fourth succeeded.

  ‘Mr Bragg had told him that he would be leaving the office for Drychester about six o’clock on a certain Tuesday evening. Parry decided to make this fourth attempt on that evening, provided Mr Ashe was not at Whitness. As it happened, Mr Ashe was otherwise engaged, and Parry went ahead with his attempt. His plan was to drug Carey and then get him alone in his own office. If he could get Carey to come in to see Mr Bragg shortly before six, and get Mr Bragg out of the way at the same time, he could manage the drugging. Parry had whisky of his own in the cupboard and Carey never could bring himself to refuse a drink. At this time Carey’s office would probably be empty and if Carey went back there no one would know he had been drugged.

  ‘Parry stated he obtained the drug from a London chemist, signing the poison book with the name and address of an Exeter resident which he selected from the telephone directory. He told the assistant he had been ordered the draughts by his doctor, giving the name of a well-known Exeter practitioner, and adding that he had unfortunately come away from home without them.’ French’s subsequent inquiries in London had confirmed Parry’s statement.

  ‘Parry had intended to see Carey and ask him to call at the railway office, but it happened that that afternoon he met him at the viaduct. He was about to give his invitation when Carey played into his hands by saying he wanted to see Bragg about blasting at the tunnel. Parry arranged the interview for 5.30.’

  French had laid his notebook on the table in front of him and every now and then he glanced at it to refresh his memory of names and hours. At the same time he surprised both his hearers by the completeness of his grip of the story.

  ‘Parry had next to get Mr Bragg out of the way so that he could administer the drug. But he wanted Mr Bragg to see Carey in the office, so as to be able to back up his own future statement that Carey had left in perfect health. He did it by putting up a story to Mr Bragg that the contractors were mixing dust with the concrete. Mr Bragg fell for it, as Parry knew he would. When Carey arrived, Parry was alone. He brought out the whisky and Carey got his dope, Parry excusing the somewhat unusual indulgence by saying he was feeling cold after his wetting and wanted a drink and asking Carey to join him. Then Mr Bragg came in, but his leaving immediately for Drychester ensured that Carey would be out of the way before the effect of the drug began to show.

  ‘When Mr Bragg left, Parry went over to the contractors’ office. He knocked to make sure that everyone but Carey had gone, then let himself in with a key which he had made. He had obtained the impression by borrowing Mr Pole’s keys to try to open a box, and taking a mould of the door key. Carey was alone and asleep. Parry then carried the murder through.’

  French paused for a few moments. He certainly should have been satisfied with the attention which his hearers were giving him. Breathlessly they hung on his words. They did not, however, speak, and presently he resumed.

  ‘In spite of the warning as to the danger of safeguards which Parry had had, he this time took several precautions to turn aside from himself any suspicion which might afterwards be aroused. He knew that with this terrible affair before him, and indeed after it was past also, he could not preserve a normal manner. He therefore staged a deliberate fall into a pool to account for his agitation. Next, he wished to prove that he had been in his own office between the time Mr Bragg left it and the time he had himself to leave to catch the 6.25 goods. He did that by pretending he had to mark some information on a plan for Inspector Holford. He showed the unaltered plan to Mr Bragg as the latter was starting for Drychester, and the plan which he handed to the stationmaster at Whitness some twenty-five minutes later bore the extra information. He intended it to be argued—and it was argued—that he had done the work in the quarter of an hour before he left the office. In reality, however, he had made two identical plans, on one of which he had previously marked the additional details. All he had to do was to show the unaltered plan to Mr Bragg, then to copy on the other Mr Bragg’s pencil marks, partially rub them out, and hand this second plan to the stationmaster. A further safeguard which he adopted was to tell an entirely false story of having seen the silhouette of a man approaching the contractors’ office as he left to catch his train.

  ‘To clinch the conclusion to which the details of Carey’s murder were intended to lead, namely, that Carey had committed suicide, he took a further step. He planted a piece of one of the original cross sections where you, Mr Lowell, would find it, believing that you would remark upon it. He would then see that the matter was followed up, leading to the discovery of the fraud. This, he believed, would supply the required motive for Carey’s suicide.

  ‘But he also saw that some accident might reveal the fact that Carey had been murdered, and he faked another piece of evidence to safeguard himself in such a contingency. This was designed to throw suspicion on you, Mr Lowell. He determined to use the well-known bad feeling which existed between yourself and his victim. He wrote you that famous letter which led to his downfall. This was in order to prevent your having an alibi at the time of Carey’s death. He trusted to your sense of chivalry not to reveal where you were and the reason you went there.

  ‘When this part of his plan succeeded and you, sir, were arrested, he at once approached Miss Vane with offers of help. This, as I said, was to keep in touch with the progress of events, and perhaps supply further evidence if such became desirable. Thanks to your cleverness, Miss Vane, the truth came out.

  ‘But only just,’ French added, shaking his head at Brenda. ‘Now that it’s over I may tell you what you probably know, Miss Vane, and that is that you had a very close call yourself. Even in Parry’s improvised attempt to murder you he showed great skill and ingenuity. He, of course, put
through both telephone calls. Here at “Serque” he convinced your mother and sister that he was afraid that some other enemy was about to attack you, and his ringing up Sergeant Emery to test his pretended suspicions and to ask for help was nothing less than a stroke of genius. Fortunately for you, he over-reached himself. His anxiety seemed so genuine and his appeal sounded so urgent that Emery sent two of his men out in a car instead of allowing them to walk. Parry believed that by taking the short cut by the hotel stables he would have plenty of time to murder you before they arrived. He would then have thrown his bit of lead pipe away, run back in the direction he had come, and watched till the police found your body, when he would have rushed up and registered the necessary surprise and horror. As a matter of fact, if he had got his blow in when he met you, his plan would have succeeded. You saved your life by running back and so giving the police time to come up.

  ‘I must add one other remark,’ French continued, ‘something to be said from my own point of view and that of the police. There was no fear at any time of a miscarriage of justice. I may say that I had made up my mind that if your alibi, Mr Lowell, stood, I should apply for warrants to search the houses and rooms of everyone on my list of possible suspects. I should then have discovered that Parry had a typewriter—a fact which does not seem to have been generally known—and, of course, I should at once have sampled the type and seen that he had written the Carey letter. As things turned out I am satisfied that your explanation of why you faked the alibi would have thrown sufficient doubt on your guilt to have ensured the making of that investigation. At the same time, Mr Lowell, I don’t deny you ran a risk. It’s never safe to play tricks in a murder case.

  ‘That, I think, brings us to the end of our business. I may be allowed to add my regrets for the unhappy time through which both of you have passed, and my satisfaction that a happier period is now opening out before you.’